This is a static copy of In the Rose Garden, which existed as the center of the western Utena fandom for years. Enjoy. :)

#1551 | Back to Top07-16-2015 08:24:43 AM

Giovanna
Ends of the Fandom
From: Edmonton, AB
Registered: 10-12-2006
Posts: 8797
Website

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

YamPuff wrote:

I think that the idea of Dorian Grey has become so ingrained in the public consciousness as having these specific set of morals (like a Christmas Carol for example) when the truth is that point of the story is, as you say, catty people being clever fucks.

I definitely get from the content of the novel that Wilde didn't necessarily mean for this story to be interpreted the way it has been. It's been given this very deep meaning based on how easily we all relate to the idea of it. We all want a painting that absorbs the awful things we do, but the novel focuses much more on the moral transfer to the painting, and the preservation of innocence. Dorian's gift isn't immortality, it's that his actions are supposed to not result in the creation of guilt and remorse. The painting is supposedly absorbing everything that would mar his innocence, so his every experience, from opium dens to murder, is experienced through an innocent's eyes. Ultimately the painting fails this, for whatever reason you choose, and that's his downfall. But it's not the immortality and means to do everything you could want that's the point of the story. It's the value of that innocent experience, and how different and vibrant and ultimately dull life is if you see it so innocently, so purely, all the time. It's a very bleak outlook on life. Dorian doesn't get past the age he would probably naturally have lived, but he's behaved like he means to live forever, exploring every sensation, every religion, everything....and it leaves him wanting. Because in the end, it's the cynicism and bitterness and catty clever shit we develop that gives entertainment and relevance to life. We pine for an innocence that would have no value stretched over time, and the finite nature of our experience is what gives it flavor. Dorian is given guiltless eternity, and it's a failed experiment.


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#1552 | Back to Top07-16-2015 12:01:25 PM

Nocturnalux
Qualified Duellist
From: Portugal
Registered: 09-10-2007
Posts: 741

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

@Gio, did you get the non-censored version? It surfaced a couple of years ago and for some reason it is still only released through Harvard University Press:

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php? … 0674057920

I strongly recommend this version to everyone interested in Oscar Wilde. It is the original text as Wilde intended to present it. I have yet to read it myself but it sits very prettily on my shelf, courtesy of a friend who sent it from the States.

I wish I had read it when I did my essay on Morality in Dorian Gray, back in the day

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#1553 | Back to Top07-16-2015 03:26:57 PM

Yams
Nest Boxer
From: Crystal Millenium
Registered: 02-13-2007
Posts: 973

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Nocturnalux wrote:

@Gio, did you get the non-censored version? It surfaced a couple of years ago and for some reason it is still only released through Harvard University Press:

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php? … 0674057920

I strongly recommend this version to everyone interested in Oscar Wilde. It is the original text as Wilde intended to present it. I have yet to read it myself but it sits very prettily on my shelf, courtesy of a friend who sent it from the States.

I wish I had read it when I did my essay on Morality in Dorian Gray, back in the day

What are some of the differences, if you don't mind elaborating?


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#1554 | Back to Top07-17-2015 08:26:57 PM

McGreddy
Saionji Slapper
From: Massachussetts
Registered: 03-31-2014
Posts: 21

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Anyone else into non-fiction? I find I usually can't follow novels and the like, because of the way they tend to be written. I'm an avid reader, but only of more straight forward narratives. For example, the last two books I read that I can't recommend enough are "STP: A Journey Through America with the Rolling Stones" by Robert Greenfield, and "Andrew Jackson: His Life And Times" by H.W. Brands.

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#1555 | Back to Top07-18-2015 11:05:49 PM

Decrescent Daytripper
Best Disney Princess
Registered: 04-09-2007
Posts: 2791

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

I'm alternating between reading the Marquis de Sade's Justine and a collection of Grace Culver detective adventures. So, basically, alternate bad things happening to good people with... bad things happening to good people and sometimes criminals.


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#1556 | Back to Top07-23-2015 04:34:05 AM

Yasha
Bitch Queen
From: Edmonton, AB, Canada
Registered: 10-15-2006
Posts: 6031
Website

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

satyreyes wrote:

Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale

[...]pulling off that feat of making you worry it could really happen.

I believe she says in either the intro or the afterword that all of the things inflicted on the women in The Handmaid's Tale have actually happened at one point or another, just not all together.

I love this book. I've never been caught by any of her other books, but this one... fantastic.

McGreddy wrote:

Anyone else into non-fiction? I find I usually can't follow novels and the like, because of the way they tend to be written. I'm an avid reader, but only of more straight forward narratives. For example, the last two books I read that I can't recommend enough are "STP: A Journey Through America with the Rolling Stones" by Robert Greenfield, and "Andrew Jackson: His Life And Times" by H.W. Brands.

I love nonfiction, but I tend to read biographies and quasi-science-y shit rather than histories. The last two that I could highly recommend are Sex at Dawn (an interesting take on human sexuality) and My Life In France by Julia Child (fucking fantastic anecdotes and food stuffs).


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#1557 | Back to Top07-23-2015 09:11:44 AM

ShatteredMirror
Yaoi Pet #1
From: Sacramento, CA
Registered: 10-22-2006
Posts: 8858

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

I loved The Handmaid's Tale. I read it as a teenager actually - my mother gave it to me, and she'd always had good taste in books (she also gave me 1984 and Brave New World, which I also liked and have written about here in the past). I'm so glad you guys like it too, but I have to say I'm not surprised.

I need to read Dorian Grey. It's been on my to-read list for a while, not because it's a classic (though I suppose it is, after all Wilde is a dead European guy) but because it always looked like a good story to me, and Wilde is pretty awesome.

On a non-fiction note, I just borrowed a copy of The Botany of Desire from a friend, so that's my next book that I'll be reading.


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#1558 | Back to Top08-24-2015 04:59:19 AM

Sweetgm2
Juri Jeerer
Registered: 02-16-2015
Posts: 40

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Looking for some good psychological thriller books.  Especially likes Silence Of The Lambs, Gone Girl, talented Mr Ripley in this aspect considering there also sociopaths.

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#1559 | Back to Top08-27-2015 12:23:28 PM

Decrescent Daytripper
Best Disney Princess
Registered: 04-09-2007
Posts: 2791

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Rereading Stephenson's Diamond Age, because I've forgotten most of it. And because it's dense, pacing it out by rereading Princess Diaries books.

This goes surprisingly and elegantly well.


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#1560 | Back to Top08-27-2015 01:18:01 PM

Yams
Nest Boxer
From: Crystal Millenium
Registered: 02-13-2007
Posts: 973

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Listening to an audio book of Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella on the way to and from work.
Funny, fluffy trash as per usual. etc-love


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#1561 | Back to Top09-01-2015 10:28:01 AM

Snow
Troublesome Insect
From: under the dogstar sail
Registered: 09-30-2013
Posts: 643

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Reading Elantris, as I can't find it in me to commit to a trilogy right now.

One thing I noticed about Brandon Sanderson is that some of his characters have rather strange nicknames. Kelsier - Kel I get. But, say, Sazed - Saze? Or Sarene - Ene? Like, how do you even pronounce those? They only sound good to me if pronounced differently from that part of the original name, and that's a somewhat unnecessary complication.

And complicated magic systems, but I quite like those.

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#1562 | Back to Top09-02-2015 03:42:13 PM

Decrescent Daytripper
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Registered: 04-09-2007
Posts: 2791

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Rereading Joe R Lansdale's Drive-In trilogy. Lansdale is one of my favorite surrealist, fever dream authors. He has a vision, a raw visual or moment, a feeling, and he just commits to it like a shark biting down into flesh and into bone and does not let go. I'm not sure I've seen anyone do the decimation and degradation of bravado as well, either. Amping up that cock-first machismo swagger a thousand movies and stories have taught us mean a man's about to taking charge and then just humiliatingly dicing that up with a machete.


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#1563 | Back to Top09-20-2015 02:40:55 PM

dlaire
A Whole Orange
From: Poland
Registered: 04-08-2007
Posts: 2322

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

I am currently reading Victor's Hugo The Man who Laughs and I'm crying again.

Victor Hugo, you are dead for centuries now, yet somehow you made so many fictional characters so fucking alive.

You play me emotionally like a fiddle.

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#1564 | Back to Top09-20-2015 07:29:22 PM

mistspinner
Ohtori Paramouri
Registered: 08-10-2013
Posts: 92

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Because Victor Hugo is a horrible person, and his ghost is even now laughing at your pain ;w;

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#1565 | Back to Top09-23-2015 06:07:31 AM

Decrescent Daytripper
Best Disney Princess
Registered: 04-09-2007
Posts: 2791

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Reading the new Princess Diaries book! There's a new Princess Diaries book! Yay!

And, Royal Wedding continues the tradition of PD novels being much closer to my experience of fandom, my feelings about being fannish, compared to more normative Big Bang Theory episodes or whatever. PD and Otaku No Video know the score. And PD wins by adding more melodrama, varied levels of silliness, and talking up how good some people's necks smell more often. Which is a strong truth.


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#1566 | Back to Top09-24-2015 05:00:12 AM

Decrescent Daytripper
Best Disney Princess
Registered: 04-09-2007
Posts: 2791

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Reading Look at the Harlequins for my birthday, because Nabokov is the Wyld Stallynz of prose. Lush, bouncy, verbose, and excellent for dancing.

Also, book confession: I cannot read the title of IQ84. I see 1984 every time, on covers, on websites. My brain won't allow IQ84 to exist.


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#1567 | Back to Top09-24-2015 01:58:02 PM

Atropos
Atropos Turretslayer
From: Hampden College
Registered: 10-22-2011
Posts: 907

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Decrescent Daytripper wrote:

Also, book confession: I cannot read the title of IQ84. I see 1984 every time, on covers, on websites. My brain won't allow IQ84 to exist.

1Q84, isn't it?

IQ84 would be a good title for an inspirational book about a man who overcame intellectual disability to accomplish...something. Possibly of an Orwellian nature.

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#1568 | Back to Top09-24-2015 02:25:47 PM

satyreyes
no, definitely no cons
From: New Orleans, Louisiana
Registered: 10-16-2006
Posts: 10328
Website

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Personally, I pronounce it "Q-teen eighty-four."

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#1569 | Back to Top09-24-2015 04:26:23 PM

Decrescent Daytripper
Best Disney Princess
Registered: 04-09-2007
Posts: 2791

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Atropos wrote:

Decrescent Daytripper wrote:

Also, book confession: I cannot read the title of IQ84. I see 1984 every time, on covers, on websites. My brain won't allow IQ84 to exist.

1Q84, isn't it?

IQ84 would be a good title for an inspirational book about a man who overcame intellectual disability to accomplish...something. Possibly of an Orwellian nature.

See what I mean? Fundamental block against it.

Or, something.

S'weird. My brain just doesn't want me to process the title.


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#1570 | Back to Top12-05-2015 12:42:23 PM

Yams
Nest Boxer
From: Crystal Millenium
Registered: 02-13-2007
Posts: 973

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

I just finished listening the LOTR trilogy audiobooks on my commute to work. It was great, the reader had this lovely british accent and sang all the songs and poems. Gave a different dimension to the story. I bought a copy of the Silmarilion and I am ready to dive in. I even found a Silmarilion reading guide on Tumblr to make the process easier, since in some ways it reads like a history text rather than a novel.

I am now listening to The Dark Tower novels by Stephen King in audiobook form. The first book so far has a great reader who does Roland's voice serious justice.

Finally, I am reading this BL manga called Canis or Dear Mr Rain (not really sure what's the official title) and the art style is just 100% my aesthetic. God if I could draw like that....etc-jurishlick

Last edited by YamPuff (12-05-2015 12:43:22 PM)


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#1571 | Back to Top12-05-2015 02:08:11 PM

BunB
Ohtori Paramouri
Registered: 11-03-2015
Posts: 91

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

YamPuff wrote:

I just finished listening the LOTR trilogy audiobooks on my commute to work. It was great, the reader had this lovely british accent and sang all the songs and poems. Gave a different dimension to the story. I bought a copy of the Silmarilion and I am ready to dive in. I even found a Silmarilion reading guide on Tumblr to make the process easier, since in some ways it reads like a history text rather than a novel.

I am now listening to The Dark Tower novels by Stephen King in audiobook form. The first book so far has a great reader who does Roland's voice serious justice.

Finally, I am reading this BL manga called Canis or Dear Mr Rain (not really sure what's the official title) and the art style is just 100% my aesthetic. God if I could draw like that....etc-jurishlick

I've been thinking of listening to audiobooks on my hour long commute but not sure how versatile they are. I often re-read paragraphs multiple times, i'm guessing that wouldn't be as convenient on an audiobook.


Must the sign of the negative proposition be constructed by means of the sign of the positive? Why should one not be able to express the negative proposition by means of a negative fact?

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#1572 | Back to Top12-06-2015 10:05:19 AM

Yams
Nest Boxer
From: Crystal Millenium
Registered: 02-13-2007
Posts: 973

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

I like listening to audio books of things I've already read before, especially if they're heavier books like LOTR (as opposed to some chick lit romance fluff). While driving I lose focus on the story now and then when I need to concentrate more on my driving (it's easier once I hit the highway), and obviously noise happens where you might miss some words. I listened to Great Expectations for the first time as an audio book and I missed out on much of Dickens's rambling, but got the majority of the story. I'd definitely recommend giving it a try since at least you don't feel like you're wasting your life driving mindlessly on the road.


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#1573 | Back to Top12-25-2015 04:48:56 AM

Decrescent Daytripper
Best Disney Princess
Registered: 04-09-2007
Posts: 2791

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Finishing Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl, about a fic writer going to college and feeling distanced from her twin sister, meeting new people, realizing the world doesn't necessarily embrace fanfiction or fandom the way she (and her family) do.

And, starting the very short but wonderfully open Catching the Big Fish, David Lynch's ruminating on stuff, centering around his meditational and artistic practices. He's beautifully candid one moment and then the next chapter, he'll start telling a story and refuse to finish it or give a key detail and... it's better that way. For anyone who does any kind of creative work, it's well worth diving into. Inspiring, and reassuring without being a bunch of platitudes and promises of success. (True story: I was at Lynch's house for a dinner, years back, and was absolutely terrified at the expense and seriousness, until he called out for someone to get the oleo wrappers from the fridge door so he could grease a pan. The book is a lot like that.)


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#1574 | Back to Top12-25-2015 10:27:50 PM

Yasha
Bitch Queen
From: Edmonton, AB, Canada
Registered: 10-15-2006
Posts: 6031
Website

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Right now I'm reading the Symphony of the Ages series. It's my version of trash books. It's not trash, not like Laurel K, but I sort of treat it that way. It's immensely readable and has enough romance and danger to make you want to know what comes next, even if you've been reading for hours. The main character (sorta, there's a lot of points of view) is the most beautiful woman on earth, so beautiful that she causes riots if she takes down her hood in a public place. She romances a dragonkin dude with part of a star sewn into his chest. They have adorable cute moments when he tries to speak ancient elvish to her and fails, meaning to say he thought she had a great ass but actually saying she had great muffins.

So, uh, yeah. It's got some of the wish-fulfillment aspects of trash books, but it's well-written and holy fuck is the world ever fleshed out. Legends, songs, stories, myths, ancient races, histories spanning thousands of years... like wow. The worldbuilding is amazingly thorough. It's interesting just for that, and I actually highly recommend these books as a rest from srs bsns fiction without being totally rotten crap like the Anita Blake series.

[Yes, I have a grudge. ABVH was fucking awesome for the first eight or so books and then all of a sudden became a sobby random sexfest, a competition to see how many different times and ways Anita could get her hole filled.]


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#1575 | Back to Top12-26-2015 03:06:14 AM

Yams
Nest Boxer
From: Crystal Millenium
Registered: 02-13-2007
Posts: 973

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

I really loved Fangirl.
Of course, if you just replaced 'fanfic writer' with 'online freelance artist' you basically would have had exactly me, down to the concept that I would stay in my room eating granola bars because the cafeteria is strange and scary. Like, it's kind of played off as a joke.. but I've been there. emot-gonk

Yasha wrote:

Right now I'm reading the Symphony of the Ages series. It's my version of trash books. It's not trash, not like Laurel K, but I sort of treat it that way. It's immensely readable and has enough romance and danger to make you want to know what comes next, even if you've been reading for hours. The main character (sorta, there's a lot of points of view) is the most beautiful woman on earth, so beautiful that she causes riots if she takes down her hood in a public place. She romances a dragonkin dude with part of a star sewn into his chest. They have adorable cute moments when he tries to speak ancient elvish to her and fails, meaning to say he thought she had a great ass but actually saying she had great muffins.

So, uh, yeah. It's got some of the wish-fulfillment aspects of trash books, but it's well-written and holy fuck is the world ever fleshed out. Legends, songs, stories, myths, ancient races, histories spanning thousands of years... like wow. The worldbuilding is amazingly thorough. It's interesting just for that, and I actually highly recommend these books as a rest from srs bsns fiction without being totally rotten crap like the Anita Blake series.

[Yes, I have a grudge. ABVH was fucking awesome for the first eight or so books and then all of a sudden became a sobby random sexfest, a competition to see how many different times and ways Anita could get her hole filled.]

I remember Rhapsody - although I thought Achmed was the best character. I forget if I shipped him with Rhapsody or his servant dude. Wow. It's been years.


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